A Note on Health Care Reform
Republicans’ promise to repeal the bill isn’t popular or wise
When their party won the first George W. Bush midterm in 2002, Karl Rove crowed that his political team had made history, which was true enough—and then went on to claim a partisan realignment that would put Republicans in charge for decades if not centuries. They lost control of Congress and the White House within the following six years, not least because of false assumptions about the meaning of their victories.
If the leaders of the new Republican majority believe that 2010 represents a sweeping ideological shift—rather than an expression of fury and fear over the nation's stagnant economy—they risk overreaching again. That risk increases for them under enormous pressure to pander to the extreme elements of the tea party movement.
Little Support for Repeal
Consider
the Republican promise to repeal health care reform, a position that might
appear highly popular to anyone who hasn't read much polling data on the issue.
Election Day exit polls showed that the health care bill is not nearly so
widely despised as right-wing propaganda suggests—and that its demise is
certainly not the highest priority of voters.
Asked
whether they want the health care reform bill repealed in the next Congress,
48% said yes and 47% said no—a statistical tie that belies any claims of
overwhelming opposition. Asked whether health care was the most important issue
in the midterm election, only 19% agreed, compared with 62% who cited the
economy.
Keep
in mind that the midterm electorate was heavily weighted toward the
conservative, older white voters most hostile to President Obama and
"Obamacare," as it is known on FOX News. Those same exit polls showed
a drop in younger voters from 18% in 2008 to only 11% this year, and a rise in
elderly voters from 16% in 2008 to 23% this year—a stunning shift. That helped
conservatives to increase their share from 34% to 41%.
Of
even greater importance is the fact that so many Americans—including many
independent voters who say they want repeal—currently have little or no idea
what the health care reform bill actually provides. Thanks to Sarah Palin, Newt
Gingrich and FOX News, millions still think the bill will force doctors to pull
the plug on Grandma. In a recent survey, up to 40% of respondents in a recent
survey said they believe the bill creates the mythical "death panels"
conjured by Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich in a "government takeover"
of the system.
None
of that is true, of course—and many of the bill's little known but real
provisions will attract support as people learn about them in a debate over
repeal. Most people like the idea of regulating insurance companies to make
sure they spend money on care rather than profits and promotion; most people
like the idea of protecting consumers from exclusion for pre-existing
conditions; and most people appreciate the idea of letting parents insure their
children until age 26.
But
come January, the Republicans will be obliged to file repeal legislation—and to
argue that the public will fare better under the tender care of the insurance
oligopoly than with any government protections at all. Otherwise, the tea party
will wreak havoc in the 2012 primaries, or so they warn.
There
was no overwhelming mandate in this election on health care. Certainly there
was no mandate to turn the country over to the insurance companies or any other
corporate elite. The Republicans assume otherwise at their own peril.
2010 Creators.com
Once again, totally clueless as to the damage this "reform" is going to do. Just doing something, especially when its the wrong thing is NO accomplishment. Wait til your health benefits are taxed, no you say? Well why is it going to be posted on yout W2 form? Thank you government, you deregulated the phone company and intervened on the publics part in their cable bills and everytime the "help" I have to put my elbows on the table. Scrap this "plan" and start over.
Repeal will be the biggest step backwards this country will have taken in decades. This bill isn't perfect but it was never intended to be. It was a baby step in the right direction. Only time and reformations will produce a better system. The republicans need to work at refining what has been passed and moving forward, rather then repealing and stepping backwards.
The biggest step backwards this country took was electing the Chicago-thug-in-chief, Hussein Obama. Thank god his presidency is such an abysmal failure that he will be a one-term president.
Corrina, it's real simple. Like most "natural order of things" conservatives, as soon as skin color enters their mind, all reasoning stops, and hate-reaction-instinct takes over. The conversation or debate stops, until the "blackness" is once and for all "lynched" out of the picture!
The common motive I pick-up from your sort, Wisconsin supporters of Tea Party, all those white folk in the area surrounding Milwaukee, is "Let's get the Black man out of the White house, and then we can talk!"
Now, suppose you succeed in replacing our federal and state governments with nothing but white Republican conservative capitalist anti-muslims, and they came up with a national healthcare... would you support it then? Your sort would be the type to institute death panels, so long as your sort got to choose who to save or who to let die. Cost benefit analysis "It's worth saving the ones who can pay me back (or vote my way), it's not worth saving those who cannot". When talk is about keeping spending and taxes down, that's where it will go.
I agree with "nik", this is a start, and it will be fixed, without killing the good parts. See my general response.
Waukesha guy, your insanity is adorable. That being said, the best you can come up with is conservatives and the tea party are racist and hateful? Even you must get sick of that tired response, for the love of god, respond with something more intellectually mature. I could care less if your messiah, lord obama, was purple, that doesn't change the fact that is one of the worst presidents this country has ever seen.
Remember that the midterm in 2002 was soon after the Twin Towers attack, when the mood was one of "let's not change generals in the middle of the war." I remember a politically liberal black woman saying that. Had it not been for that, I think the Democrats would have won.
Stagnant economy, would not have been so bad if Americans had been living within their means and saving for a rainy day, instead of living on credit (and feeding the economy) off of their rising real estate prices. Savings would allow them to ride through instead of immediate demand for relief.
Change is a double-edged sword. Everybody wants their own personal permanent benefit from it, but everybody hates the temporary costs and effort they must go through adjusting to change. That's why the only change business lobbyists will allow their paid lawmakers to support are those that allow making money today. That's why "Obamacare" came in as "force people to buy health insurance, allow healthcare to get full price" instead of "force healthcare to drop price" and "make it so people don't need healthcare."
That's another reason to make this a public-funded, government run service, not like other "privatized" services. Private business is all about making profit. Private business will always strive to serve only those from which they can make a profit off of, they always leave cracks for some to fall through, won't serve those who cost too much.
Look at the rise of electric utilities and telephone service back in the mid 1900's. Cities first, where there were lots of "paying customers" in a small, cheap to hook up area. It took governments and tax dollars to bring it to the rural areas where miles of wire was needed to reach all people.
Like in Wisconsin, to improve the safety of the milk that we drank in the city, we had to get electricity out to the farms (cool the milk), we had to pave and plow the roads so the milk trucks won't get stuck in mud or snow. We also made the farmers remove their outhouses, switch to indoor plumbing and septic systems, all for safety of the milk. My grandpa remembers that.
What this country needs is a reduction in healthcare costs by prevention and education, but Insurance companies and the Healthcare industries won't make any money off of that. So we got mandates for the healthy to purchase health insurance, which is allowed to keep 20% markup on the money they do pay when they go to the doctor. A government mandated "middle man". Other insurance companies didn't want Hillary's plan because she wanted only one insurance company chosen, not to allow many. So their lobbied and advertised, told y'all that you should not support Hillary's plan.
Hillary's plan had one advantage, perfectly aligned with the FairTax movements plan to ELIMINATE the IRS. Simplifying the tax code will allow business to lay-off most of their clerks and accountants. Bringing down the paperwork to just one standard form, one set of rules, will allow the doctors and dentists to lay-off most of their billing staff, allowing them to drop prices. Maybe low enough so insurance isn't even be needed anymore! But where is the money in that?